


From What I’ve Tasted of Desire

by thehobbem



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bottom Victor Nikiforov, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Light Angst, Long-Haired Katsuki Yuuri, Long-Haired Victor Nikiforov, M/M, Mutual Pining, Romance, Sexual Content, Top Katsuki Yuuri, and a little of crane wife, period au, robbie and sim are here to tell you that victor nikiforov is not even human, yuki-onna au, yuki-onna!victor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-17 17:37:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16520960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehobbem/pseuds/thehobbem
Summary: Creatures of snow and ice, yuki-onnas know nothing but running and hiding, can never have anything but loneliness and winters. Victor knows it, has lived era upon era resigned to it. But when spring brings him Yuuri, he dares to hope that maybe even he can have a life of warmth.As long as Yuuri doesn't know him for what he truly is.





	From What I’ve Tasted of Desire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thehandsingsweapon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehandsingsweapon/gifts).



_Run._

_Do not look back._

_Run away from them._

He repeats the mantra in his head, over and over again until he convinces the best, weakest part of himself. If he looks back, if he stops for even a moment to think about what he’s done, it’s over. He took no pleasure in doing it, never has, but he can’t afford the luxury of regretting it either.

 _Cover the world in snow and death, cover your steps in white silence, cover yourself in everything you’re made of._ Things he learned eras ago, and naively hoped to never need — and now he covers his trail in cold and the shards of his hopes, as eras come and go, and he needs the advice more and more often.

And so he runs.

Creatures like him don’t have other options — creatures made of ice and terror, and grief that turns into riches. Though that’s not accurate: there’s also the blood dripping from his wounds. Another companion for his reduced list.

But he’s escaped once again. How many times hasn’t he done it before, how many times won’t he do it in the future?

Feet light and easy where a human’s would sink, he runs across the snow, leaving droplets of red behind as they pierce the glistening white. How long he'll have to run until he finds shelter is a question best not dwelled upon, and the only one occupying his thoughts.

Night and day pass him by more times than he cares to count, dawn blurring into twilight at the edge of the world in perfect, uninvited symphony with the rhythm of his throbbing wounds. Not once does he pause for rest or food or water; there can be no stopping before he’s sure the danger is behind him.

 _Let the blizzard rage as furious as your anger. As desperate as your fear._ Humans do not welcome the snow, he knows, another reason they curse his kind. But humans do not need it as a shield. He can be easily found in the sun or in the rain; in a blizzard though, only he emerges victorious.

(A flawless strategy, if it didn’t also stop him from finding shelter as much as it stopped others from finding  _him_.)

He walks for what feels too short to be a full moon cycle, and too long for it to be just a day, when he catches a glimpse of a building.  _Finally_. If the gods have blessed him, it will be a temple; temples are built by humans but do not belong to them, keeping anyone away if the god of the temple wishes it so. All he will have to do is throw himself on the kindness of whatever god owns it, and he will be safe.

As he gets closer, however, his hopes sink: it’s a human dwelling, the last place he wishes to find himself trapped in. And yet he needs it. He needs to hide for a while, to stop and sleep and treat his wounds before he can go on. Or back. Surely he can find somewhere to hide without a human discovering him; maybe under the floor, among the wooden beams that elevate the house. It wouldn’t be his first time.

He reads the writing on the plaque at the gate, and lets out a small, bitter laugh: hot springs. Of all the places he could have wandered into. But he’s come too far for far too long, and he doubts his legs are able to carry him much further.

The few stumbling steps Victor takes as he crosses the gate confirm that. There’s no strength left in those legs to take him anywhere else — and his one final thought, as he loses the battle and allows his body to rest against the snow, maybe to never again get back up, is not to cry.

_Leave them no tears._

 

* * *

 

Yuuri looks around, proud of his own work. Stairs? Thoroughly brushed. Mirrors? Spotless. Linens? Perfectly washed (although when they will really dry is another question). The only thing left for him to do now is wait, just like the rest of the city, stuck in a moment in time as the blizzard engulfs them in its furor.

Where it came from is a question for the ages; one moment the trees were covered in cherry blossoms, just as they should be now in the middle of spring. The other, the world traded spring for a blanket of beautiful, murderous white it had just bid farewell to, as if it couldn’t wait another year for it to come back. Yuuri quickly finds that looking out the window is an exercise in futility: he can’t even make out the nearest tree, drowning in the storm like everything else.

So what was supposed to be laundry day turns into inside chores day. And “inside chores” mean “cleaning the whole inn by himself”, with his family stuck in another city for the gods know how long. At the very least, there’s finally an advantage to not having guests during peak season, a curse he never thought he would be grateful for. He won’t go as far as calling it “a blessing in disguise” though, as it’s mostly still a curse; both Yu-topia and Hasetsu could well use more visitors. But the railroads recently built through the town, and the distinct lack of a train station there, means that Hasetsu, once a place for travelers to stop by, is now a place to be passed by.

Yuuri, for all of his hard work at the inn and his fervent wishes, can do nothing about it. He can only work, and watch both their business and the entire town’s go under as the new era leaves them behind.

With a sigh, a bowl of katsudon in one hand and tea in the other, Yuuri makes camp at the common area, now completely bare of life and noise, not unlike the world outside. He’s scarcely sat down to eat, though, when he hears a  _plop_ outside. He nearly ignores it, until he realizes there should be no  _plops_ whatsoever. What, or who, would be  _plopping_ in the middle of a blizzard? He stands up, wondering what sort of animal got stuck in the snow, and is greeted by the sight of something very different when he slides the front door open. It’s hard to tell from that distance, but it's something made of silver and white. And that flash of pink does look like an obi—  _dear gods it’s a person_.

Yuuri runs out of the house and kneels by the motionless figure: it’s a man, his skin colder than ice. Is he dead?! No, his chest is still moving, faintly, but he’s still breathing. He turns the man on his back, maybe he can— he’s bleeding. His white clothes are mottled by red, in a grotesque imitation of a floral pattern on a summer yukata, and moving the man left a crimson trail in the snow.

Without a second thought, Yuuri scoops him in his arms and carries him inside.

 

* * *

 

First it’s the curious lack of snow, the general feeling of something missing that trickles its way in; that is followed by unmistakable warmth, cradling him and dripping into the cracks of his sleep, making room for drowsy awareness little by little — not unlike how blizzards are formed, crystal by crystal, until it’s too strong to be denied.

Soon his half-awake self is happily settled in knowing there is nothing for him to worry about. Cold and ice have been replaced by comfort under soft covers, and pain has given in to someone gently wrapping his right arm.

Someone.

Victor’s eyes fly open, and he immediately regrets it. He should’ve pretended to still be asleep, because  _there is a human there_. One currently focused on bandaging his wounds as quietly as possible, but a human nonetheless.

A young one, too, if he is any judge, but even their youngest are capable of inflicting pain for greed, especially men. He knows that from experience.

When the man turns around with a damp cloth in his hand, and one of those seeing contraptions on his face, their eyes meet before Victor can close his. The human smiles.

“Hello. How are you feeling?”

Victor doesn’t answer, lost in all the ways he cannot escape from any of this. With his body too weakened to fight, he depends entirely on whatever mercy the human chooses to bestow on him. But what a disaster he is, to run away from a group of predators only to fall at the hands of another; Yakov was right, he should never have left.

Like the perfect twist of a knife into an open wound, his emotions choose there and then to betray him, his eyes welling up with the tears that can spell out his doom.

To his surprise, however, the human’s eyes grow wider.

“Oh, no no no no no no, please don’t cry! There’s no— Wait, I can— I’m— here,” he says, frantically looking around before offering the edge of his own sleeve to him. When Victor stares instead of taking it — what is he supposed to do with his sleeve?! — the human delicately wipes Victor’s eyes with it.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice shifting from panic to softness. “You’ve been through a lot, huh? And then you wake up in a strange place, of course you’re scared. But there’s no need to be, you’re safe here. I just… I found you outside, and you were bleeding pretty badly, so I brought you in.”

He passed out outside. Not exactly a part of his plan to hide. But now that the human mentioned it, his wounds no longer throb, and he can feel bandages around his left hand and arm. Slowly, not quite daring to take his eyes off the human, Victor feels around his right shoulder: there are bandages there as well, under those clothes that are definitely not his.

The man gives him a small smile. “I cleaned and covered your wounds, I hope it’s alright. I also took the liberty to wash your clothes, there was, um… there was blood all over. Hopefully, they’ll dry out in a day or two. I would’ve lent you one of my own kimonos, but I’m afraid they’d be too small for you, so uh… the jinbei was the only option. Sorry.”

Victor has no idea of what to say. A human took care of him, a whole new concept he will need much longer to wrap his head around. Give him another era and perhaps he might be able to process that.

Right now, there is only one thing he can say: “Thank you.”

His voice comes out hoarse, unused (when was the last time he even spoke?), and to his own ears it sounds like it, too, is coming from behind a thousand walls of ice. The very image of its owner. But it also seems enough to get a smile from the man, a full smile that makes Victor’s chest constrict a little.

“You’re welcome. By the way, I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself before. My name’s Katsuki Yuuri.”

“I…” he stops. Trusting a human is an enormous leap of faith, to say the least; there is no sane reason for him to do so.

_Please don’t cry._

There’s only warmth under the covers, an old jinbei, and a request for no tears. And a smile.

“I’m Victor,” he says. His decision is rewarded with a second, even prettier smile.

“Are you hungry, Victor? I can bring you some katsudon and tea, if you want.”

 _Gods, food._ When he nods (a bit too eagerly, perhaps), the hu— Yuuri stands up and walks towards the door. Before he leaves, however, he looks back at him.

“You… I don’t know what you were running away from, but um… no one needs to know you’re here if you don’t want them to.”

They stare at each other for a long, silent moment. Finally, Yuuri looks away, a blush as pink as the cherry blossoms tinting his cheeks. Before he knows what he’s doing, Victor raises himself on an elbow to get a better look at it.

“I’m sorry, that’s— that’s none of my business,”  Yuuri says, “I shouldn’t—”

“Thank you, Yuuri.”

That makes him stop. The thought of making that lovely blush go away is an unpleasant one, but making Yuuri feel like he’s done something wrong by offering him kindness is needlessly cruel. But the gods always reward those who do the right thing, and Victor’s recompense is to see the blush deepen to a crimson red.

“Ah… you’re welcome. I’ll, uh, I’ll go get the katsudon”

That night Victor goes back to sleep on a full stomach and the long-forgotten certainty of safety. His last thoughts, however, are only of a pretty name to go with hair dark as the night sky, eyes like the early dawn, and a smile of springs.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri has to concede defeat as he inspects the kimono: it’s not going to dry any time soon. But at least it went back to a pristine white, and his unexpected guest will be able to wear it again as if it were brand new. His utterly mysterious guest, who gave him no last name for Yuuri to call him by, and who was almost too scared to even talk to him yesterday. It would be easy to tell himself the man was scared to find himself in unknown surroundings, but there’s no denying the fear in his eyes as he looked at  _Yuuri_ , as though he were some kind of demon. Sure, Yuuri might not be the most handsome man one will ever see, but  _fear_ is taking things too far!

He sets out to clean the inn again — carrying in someone covered in blood and snow did not do the floor any favors — and the sun is already close to the ridge of the sky when his stomach finally protests; he’s been up for hours, but not deigned to pay any attention to his stomach’s grumbles, or how they steadfastly went from discreet to outraged throughout the morning. But what can he do about it? If it were up to him, he’d tear through all their provisions in a couple of days without even blinking; but between the meager, often non-existent winnings they have at Yu-topia, and a never-ending blizzard that stopped life itself, rationing is by far the wiser choice.

In the end he settles for some sencha tea. He pours it into his cup while planning for the rest of the day: he still has to see to the hot springs in the back, see what shape they’re in, and maybe try to clean a little of the snow now that the blizzard has drastically died down. He should also—

“Good morning, Yuuri.”

With a yelp, Yuuri turns around with the pot of hot tea in his hands and spills some of it on his foot, and finds his guest looking at him with huge eyes, hands clamped over his mouth.

“Oh gods, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I—”

“No! No, that’s fine,” Yuuri tries to reassure him, hissing as he feels the hot water burn, gods  _damn it_. “I’m sorry, I should have paid more attention to—”

“Here,” says Victor, grabbing a piece of cloth and going down on his knees. Ignoring Yuuri’s protests, he wipes his foot with the utmost care, almost reverently. “Hot water is dangerous,” he murmurs.

“Ah… yes, of course. I’m sorry I didn’t hear you come in, I was distracted.”

“No, it’s me who should apologize,” Victor replies, standing up and offering him a slight bow. “I should have announced myself before coming in.”

“Well, no harm done,” Yuuri says, finally looking properly at his guest. Victor’s hair is still mussed from sleep, as well as whatever events had troubled him the day before.  _I should really lend him a comb,_ he thinks, his eyes following the disheveled, tangled mess of hair tumbling down his shoulders and over his  _completely exposed chest_ , under the jinbei Victor didn’t bother to close. Completely, thoroughly perfect, exposed chest.

That nature saw fit to make Victor preternaturally beautiful is hard not to notice. Yuuri would have to be blind not to see the waterfall of silver hair, the eyes of clear skies and the body gods would have fought among themselves for — but he’s done his best not to take too much notice of it, even as he changed him and cleaned his wounds the day before.

That wide open jinbei does not help his resolution whatsoever.

Yuuri blinks and looks away, entirely aware of the flush taking over his face.  _Move. Do something, say something._

“So, um… you… would you like some tea?” he asks, moving around the kitchen without waiting for an answer. “By the way, your kimono is still quite far from dry, I’m afraid, but — excuse me, let me just get that— yes, thank you — but it’s completely clean! You’ll be able to wear it again in a couple of days, for sure. Sorry, excuse me again — I’m sorry there’s only this jinbei, you must be cold… do you need more covers? We have plenty of them, I can lend you as many as you like. Here,” he finishes, handing Victor his cup of tea.

Victor takes the cup with a wrinkle between his eyebrows. “We?”

“Ah, yes, me and my family! They’re not here right now, as you can see, they went into the next town some days ago. They were supposed to arrive today, but they probably got stuck there with the blizzard. They should be back in a few days, now that it’s dying down. So it’s just you and me for the moment,” he adds, doing his best to keep his eyes above Victor’s neck. There is simply no acceptable way of saying  _Could you please close your jinbei properly? Your chest is too enticing to look at_.

“Oh, so… there’s more of you coming,” says Victor quietly. Yuuri looks at him, confused.  _More of you?_ What, more… Katsukis?

“Uh, yes, there’s four of us: me, my sister, and my parents. But since they’re not here, I have to see to the inn myself. So please,” he says, gesturing for Victor to follow him out of the kitchen and into the common area, “make yourself at home. We have some books on that shelf, and uh… well, normally our guests would enjoy the onsen, but that’s not an option now, of course, so… anyway, I’ll be here if you need anything.”

“Wait. You… you’re going to take care of this enormous place… by yourself?” Victor asks, looking all around him to drive further home how big the inn is. “Won’t you need help?”

“I… well, I mean… there’s no one, so...” Yuuri shrugs, letting the gesture complete his meaning.

“I can help.”

Yuuri gapes at him. Is he joking?

“I can’t… you can’t,” he says, a bit more stupidly than he would like, but the absurdity of the suggestion is enough to throw him out of whirl.

Victor raises his eyebrows. “Why not? You helped me, nothing fairer than me helping you in return.”

“Yes, but—” Yuuri stops. The logic is sound, and it’s not like Victor is a normal guest. He’s not paying for his stay — Yuuri certainly has no plans of charging him. But it feels wrong to have a guest, even a non-paying one, help around the inn.

“What about your wounds?”

“Oh, they don’t hurt at all! You did a fantastic job with them!” he says, smiling for the first time since he’s arrived, and—  _oh._ Oh gods. It’s the exact shape of a heart. How’s that possible? He’s even prettier than Yuuri initially thought.

It takes Yuuri a second too long to answer, long enough for Victor to stare at him worriedly, and he shakes his head to break the spell.

“That’s… that’s great to hear! I’m glad you’re better!”

“So as you see, it’s now my turn to help,” Victor insists softly. “Please allow me to do something for you.”

“Well, I could  use a little help,” says Yuuri slowly. “You could… help me wipe the windows and the mats?”

As unsure as he is that this is anywhere remotely close to a good idea (his mother just might kill him when she finds out he’s had a guest do chores) it’s worth it just for how Victor’s face brightens at the idea.

“Certainly! Just show me how!”

Teaching Victor to wipe is simple enough, even if somewhat baffling that he doesn’t already know how to. But then, foreigners, what can one do? The hard part comes when it’s time to prepare their meal; he feared the moment Victor would see their scant resources, but finds instead that he’s too fascinated with the cooking utensils to notice that. And if Victor is less than useful in the kitchen, he makes up for it by being lively company. There are no questions he doesn’t ask, no small detail of Yuuri’s life he doesn’t take an interest in, no smiles he’s not willing to offer, and Yuuri gets through the cooking before he knows it. It does take him longer than usual, but then, those heart-shaped smiles are unusually distracting. There’s only so much he can do in the face of that.

The afternoon and evening go by in similar fashion, with Victor in awe of the simplest things in a household, but endlessly ready and enthusiastic to learn everything about  _him_ _._ Yuuri goes to bed not half as tired as he should be, and twice as awake. What sleep is there to be had at the end of a day spent in the company of someone so… so devastatingly endearing? Someone who, not content in being impossibly beautiful, has also been granted an impossible smile: impossible to replicate, and impossible to forget.

When sleep finally deigns to visit him, it finds him lost in the memories of someone who wears his heart on his sleeve and his lips.

 

* * *

 

“No, they just… they go in and… enjoy it?”

Victor stares. How can anyone enjoy such torture?!

“But it’s boiling hot!”

“It’s not boiling hot,” Yuuri laughs, and Victor’s smile comes unbidden, as it always happens around Yuuri. “We’d all die if it were boiling hot, Victor! No, it’s just… warm. Don’t they have hot springs where you’re from?”

 _We would most certainly die if we went into a hot springs_. “No, not really, though we… know of them, of course.”

Yuuri scoops up more snow, his progress around the hot springs slow but certain. Victor watches from the door, as he wants to be nowhere near the springs. He would like to help Yuuri, but falling into a lake of hot water would put a definitive stop to that, or any other plans he might have for his future.

 _Don’t they have hot springs where you’re from?_ That confirms what Victor's suspected from day one: Yuuri doesn’t know what he is. As far as he’s concerned, Victor is simply a foreigner from an undisclosed location (Yuuri is too polite to ask where from, and Victor won’t offer him a lie unprompted). It’s better that way. Hard as it is to picture Yuuri being unkind to anyone, no matter who (or what) they are, some things are best not put to the test.

“Well, you should try it out when spring comes back,” says Yuuri, coming to sit next to him. “If spring ever decides to comes back, that is,” he jokes.

The twinge of guilt in Victor’s conscience comes back. The whole region is covered in snow because of  _his_ blizzard. He doesn’t regret summoning it — it was either that or torture, at the very least — but watching Yuuri struggle to take care of the inn, separated from his family and cut off from the rest of town for a week now, is a strong argument to never summon another blizzard again.

On the other hand, it at least allowed him to be here with who he is now. Although a human, Yuuri never brings anything with him but surprises and laughter; nothing but sheer beauty every time he smiles or speaks or even breathes, making it impossible for Victor to take his eyes off of him.

Like now. The ice on the ground and the heat from the springs, the timid hint of cherry blossoms on the trees as they peak from under the snow, it all fades away as Yuuri sits by him, a couple of tantalizing tendrils slipping from his bun and snaking down his neck. Even his smallest gesture, like wiping his forehead with the back of his arm, has Victor spellbound, watching as a single bead of sweat rolls down Yuuri’s cheek and his jawline, sharp as a snow crystal.

And that is when Victor is not occupied with staring at Yuuri’s thighs, left completely bare after he hitched up his kimono to his knees to work in the snow. Thick, muscular thighs Victor cannot (and will not, for all the blessings in this or another world) look away from. He has no memory of having ever met any creature as exquisite as Yuuri, in all the eras he’s been alive for.

The blizzard is over, and the remaining snow will soon melt; Yuuri's family will come back, and life will go back to its axis. But perhaps, when the snow leaves, it can… leave Victor behind. Right here.

Maybe he can stay.

“Well, I don’t know about that hot water of yours,” he says, side-eyeing the hot springs, “but spring is definitely coming. I can… I can still be here when it does. If you’ll let me.”

Victor feels his face burn with the embarrassment of saying such a thing out loud. But when sitting here with Yuuri nothing seems too ridiculous, or too far-fetched to come true. Nothing too absurd to suggest or plan, when Yuuri’s answer comes with a flushed face and that lovely smile that visits Victor’s dreams more often than not:

“I’d love that.”

 

* * *

 

Just as he’s predicted, the Katsukis are back within a day. And if their presence is a sign of Yuuri’s life shifting back to where it should be, it does nothing but disrupt Victor’s hopes. Who knows how they’ll react to him?

He watches as all four of them talk at the same time, and waits awkwardly by the table where he and Yuuri were having lunch together (he can say goodbye to his meals alone with Yuuri now).

His focus is exclusively on Yuuri, hoping he’ll remember Victor and introduce him, until he feels someone else’s eyes linger on him. He is a second too late: when he looks, the young woman is looking away from him.

When the introductions finally come, they prove to be a relief: the older couple has nothing but smiles for him — and even if Victor didn’t know beforehand, he would still be able to deduce that woman is Yuuri’s mother. They have the exact same eyes, and the same dire need to make absolutely  _sure_ Victor has everything to be comfortable. Victor finds her only marginally easier to assuage than Yuuri.

Yuuri’s sister, on the other hand, has a more detached demeanor to be found nowhere else in her family, and soon disappears down the hall and upstairs, saying something about the futons. She remains distant throughout the rest of the day, only occasionally bumping into Victor as he tries to make himself useful (and her mother insists that he do no such thing), giving him a nod as she walks away. Well, so she isn’t the warmest person in the family. Victor will be the last one to blame anyone for not being warm enough.

And yet, it’s her face instead of Yuuri’s that show up in his dreams that night; a face that scrutinizes, watches and judges, with the same eyes that lingered on him during dinner, but refused to meet his. Startling awake, he sits up with a sudden certainty.

_She knows._

* * *

Yuuri scoffs. “Mari, don’t be ridiculous.”

Mari crosses her arms — her “I’m not letting this go” stance — and Yuuri swallows a sigh as he grabs a new towel to fold.

“Yuuri, how can you not see it?!”

“Um, because I didn’t spend the entire last week listening to old folk-tales in Kitahata?”

“Not my fault we got stuck there,” she mumbles, aggressively folding another towel. “Do you know what there is to do in Kitahata?”

He bites back a laugh. “...nothing?”

“Nothing,” she nearly growls. “Only old people telling the same stories over and over again. But they do know a thing or two, and you  _should_ listen to those tales more often. Yuuri,” she lowers her voice, her face turning serious again, “how can you be so blind? He’s obviously a yuki-onna!”

Yuuri rolls his eyes. “Please, do you even hear yourself? Victor’s a person. A  _person_.”

“How do you know? Have you ever seen him cry?”

“Why on earth would he cry?!”

“Yuki-onnas shed pearls instead of tears,” she points out. “I’ll accept he’s human when I see tears that do not turn into pearls.”

“What do we suggest, then, that we  _make_ him cry? Mari, look, he was bleeding in the snow, like a human being. I dressed him, I cleaned his wounds. He’s as human as you and I!”

She shakes her head. “You’re not thinking. You know as well as I do demons can disguise themselves.”

“I know nothing of the sort, and neither do you!” he says indignantly. When did she become an expert in demons?!  “When was the last time you ‘met’ a demon?!”

“Today, at breakfast! You were too busy gawking at him, but not everyone is in awe, you know.”

“I was not gawking,” he protests — in vain, of course, his face is already flushed. He knows exactly in which direction his thoughts go whenever Victor is around, and just how much his heart rate picks up at the sound of Victor’s voice. But there’s no need to make a spectacle of it, and he thought he was doing a decent job of hiding it. Clearly, not good enough.

Mari shrugs his protest away. “Yes, you were, but more importantly, he was gawking at you too, and that’s the problem.”

That… is not a problem. As far as Yuuri is concerned, that’s the very opposite of a problem. Victor is welcome to gawk at him as much as he wants, from whatever angle he wishes to. Yuuri is nothing to gawk at, but he won’t judge Victor for it.

As if reading his mind (maybe he’s just that transparent), Mari huffs, annoyed. “Yuuri, he’s going to  _use_  you! That’s what yuki-onnas do! Seduce men and drain their life force until there’s nothing left!”

“Suuure… but um… aren’t you forgetting something? Just a small detail, really, but shouldn’t a yuki-onna be… you know, a woman? By definition?”

“Right. Because a woman is exactly what’s going to attract  _you_ ,” says Mari, deadpan. “Demons can take whatever form they want! They know what to do to lure their victims!”

“Did you learn that in Kitahata too?”

She throws her hands up in defeat. “Fine. Fine! Keep ogling your silver demon, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll remember that when he drains my life force,” he snickers. He gets a towel thrown on his face for it before his sister leaves the room, along with a look that could wither entire crops, but has long lost its power over Yuuri.

Victor, a yuki-onna… where does she get those ideas?

 

* * *

 

Yuuri’s mom eventually gives up on treating Victor like a guest and brings him along for this or that task around town, calling him “Vicchan” as if she’s known him all his life. Victor goes happily, chatting away with her like lifelong best friends. He goes wherever he’s told, does whatever he’s asked, his bright white kimono and pink obi easy to spot everywhere, and he’s soon known around Hasetsu as Vicchan, “the new helping boy at Yu-topia”. Yuuri was scandalized at the notion when he first heard it, but Victor smiled and said “No one’s ever called me Vicchan, I love it!”, and that was the end of it.

Even Mari has surrendered — not as much to Victor’s charms as to his willingness to help — and can be seen doing the laundry with him, or helping him tie his hair back before a chore. She still drops hints here and there, though, to Yuuri’s annoyance.

(“Did you notice mom saying Victor’s hands were ice-cold?” “Mari, many human beings have colder skin than others!”)

(“You knowhe’s not going to try the hot springs, right? He’ll melt if he goes in.” Yuuri has no answer to that one.)

But despite the “Vicchan”s and the “Victor-is-a-yuki-onna” theory, nothing seems out of place, and Victor fits into their life at Yu-topia as fast and easily as the cherry blossoms come once the snow is gone. He fits in so well he starts looking like he belongs — more like one of them, with the dark green jinbei of the inn and tiny flyaway hairs escaping from his braid, slightly frazzled from work, and less like a winter deity made of silver and alabaster. Less statuesque, and more tangible.

Looking more perfect than he did before, if such a thing is possible.

So why, Yuuri wonders, watching Victor make conversation with a guest, are those circles under his eyes getting bigger every day? Why does his smile crumble when he thinks no one is looking?

Maybe he isn’t happy here. He was the first one to mention staying, and no word of leaving ever escapes his mouth; but maybe Victor needs more from life than working for food and board at a small inn in a small town. Maybe Yuuri should put his own selfish desires aside and encourage him to leave, go after better things and a better life.

When the guest leaves towards the hot springs, Victor comes promptly back to his side with a smile that makes Yuuri’s heart flutter. It should be tired of going out of pace around Victor, but it’s probably too in love with him to ever stop doing that.

“Yuuri, did you know Yamaguchi-san’s dog had puppies?” he asks excitedly. “She said we can visit whenever we want and play with them!”

“That’s great,” he says, his smile feeble even to himself; Victor’s brow immediately knits at the lack of reaction.

“Is everything all right, Yuuri? What happened?”

“No, I was… I was just thinking. Is, um… is everything alright with you?” he asks, and when Victor’s eyes widen he ads, “You don’t… look like you’ve been sleeping well.”

“Oh. Right,” says Victor. He offers no other answer, though, and Yuuri presses on:

“I mean… if there’s anything on your mind, you can… you can talk to me. You know that, right? We can always… talk,” he finishes weakly. Not his most articulate moment, for sure.

Victor looks at him, his face unreadable, and he nods once. Curtly. “I know. Thank you, Yuuri.”

Yuuri nods back, unsure of what to say. Victor can be so talkative, so spontaneous in his interactions, and so willing to know everything about Yuuri, that Yuuri forgot he still knows close to nothing about him. Victor brings piles of questions, making it easy to ignore the fact that he offers no answers in return. It’s very possible he simply doesn’t want to talk to  _Yuuri_ about whatever weighs on his mind; very much within the realm of possibility, but as hurtful as falling face first on the ice.

“So! What do you think about tomorrow?” Victor picks up from where he left off, as if this conversation is nothing but an interval best forgotten about. “Do you think Yamaguchi-san will mind if we go?”

“Leave Yamaguchi-san alone,” says Mari, walking into the common area with an armful of clothes. “One of you come help me fold these, and mom wants someone in the kitchen.”

With another smile that doesn’t feel quite right, Yuuri stands up and grabs some of the clothes from Mari, and that’s Victor’s cue to head for the kitchen. They don’t see each other again until dinner, both immersed in chores and errands all day.

Maybe it’s for the best. He can’t spend every single waking moment with Victor, what will he do when Victor inevitably leaves?

 

* * *

 

Victor turns, closes his eyes again and waits. No, that won’t do, he shut his eyes tootightly; he relaxes his face and waits some more.

Nothing.

Maybe on his back? No, not that eit— right, he forgot to close his eyes. How can he forget to close his eyes to sleep?!

No matter how much he closes his eyes or what position he tries, sleep won’t come. For the past month, sleep has only come with dawn, just as the rest of the house wakes up and life begins. If he puts together all the hours of sleep he’s gotten this past week, he still won't get a full night.

It would help if the one thing he sees when he closes his eyes weren’t Mari’s. Watching him. Always watching, even when she is being kind to him or when she laughs. Always alert, waiting for Victor to betray himself. She knows what he is, that much is clear in her eyes; why she hasn’t told anyone yet is a mystery.

It may be she’s just not interested in his tears. Knowing the Katsukis as he does now, that’s more than probable. As pressed for money as they are, they would never take advantage of someone’s pain, and he feels as safe in Yu-topia as he felt hidden up in the mountains.

Maybe she fears him? No, what a ridiculous assumption, when did Katsuki Mari, of all people, ever fear anyone or anything? Demons should be afraid of her, not the other way around.

So why, why hasn’t she told them? Why hasn’t she told Yuuri?

What would Yuuri think?

The nights he doesn’t see her severe face, he sees Yuuri rejecting him, disgusted at the mere sight of Victor, telling him to leave and never come back. A scenario as implausible as Mari being afraid of him, he knows. Yuuri is nothing but kind — but exaggerations of his sleepless mind aside, that Yuuri might not wish him near him anymore can very well happen.

Giving up on sleep, Victor gets up and adjusts his yukata (the one thing he’s allowed the Katsukis to buy him), ready for another night stroll. That’s what, his third that week? The Katsukis have long gone to bed, so he’ll have to tiptoe his way to— a door slides shut at the end of the hallway.

He sticks his head out his door to find Yuuri’s silhouette behind the shōji. He must have been working till late again. How many of his nights spent tossing and turning hasn’t Victor heard or seen Yuuri walk by?

How many of those nights hasn’t he wished he could follow Yuuri into his bedroom?

_If there’s anything on your mind, you can talk to me._

Victor hesitates, watching glimpses of Yuuri moving in the bedroom. He should go on his night stroll, but even the outline of Yuuri against the lamp light is more alluring than anything the world outside has to offer.

When the light in the bedroom goes out, Victor’s feet make his decision for him, and he gently knocks on the lattice before his common sense has the chance to take over. A little shuffling from inside and Yuuri is at the door, staring at him wide-eyed with no glasses, his hair already loose and falling down his back in a disheveled state. He was clearly lying in bed, this is a mistake.

“Victor? Is everything okay?” Yuuri whispers.

“I…” Victor twists the end of his braid in his hands. He shouldn’t be here. But he is, and so is Yuuri. “I couldn’t sleep.”

Yuuri looks at him, eyes almost black in the dark, but Victor can still see the worry in them. The kindness. And that something else he always finds there, the one thing he can’t give a name to but wants to drown in all the same.

Without a word, Yuuri steps aside in a silent invitation, and Victor walks in.

He stops in the middle of the room. He knows it well by now, has been here many times for one chore or another (and one time to wake Yuuri up in the morning, at Mari’s request); he knows the worn-out mats that are carefully taken care of every morning, the blue covers Yuuri uses at night, and the scroll with Yuuri’s favorite poem, “To Make History”, hanging on the wall near the door. Now, however, all the details that make Yuuri are lost to the quiet and the dark, and the only thing left to guide him is Yuuri himself.

Yuuri, who will probably want to know what happened. How can Victor explain he can’t sleep for fear of Mari revealing him for the snow creature he is?

“Come here,” Yuuri murmurs, going back to his futon and lifting the cover, making room for Victor beside him. When Victor doesn’t move, stunned in place, Yuuri quickly lets the cover go. “I mean… you don’t have to, of course, I just thought that— since you can’t sleep… I don’t know, having someone near usually hel—” he stops when Victor steps closer.

“...Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure. Stay. It might help you sleep.” There’s no light in the room, but Victor can hear the smile in the words. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s ever wanted anything as helplessly as that smile.

Victor slides under the covers with only the smallest hint of hesitation. Prudence tells him that a night spent next to Yuuri will be forever branded in his memory, for better or for worse; the frenzied thumping in his chest, however, muffles such a notion until it dies away.

The futon barely fits them both, allowing for nothing between them but liminal space. As Victor’s eyes adapt, Yuuri’s face becomes clearer moment by moment, until nothing remains but him. Nothing but eyes of amber and uneven breathing that mirrors his own.

The only point of contact is Yuuri’s hand, trapped between the two of them and lightly grazing the collar of Victor’s yukata. Neither of them reach out, but Yuuri carefully runs a finger along the collar. “Why can’t you sleep?” he asks.

Victor swallows, his attention on the finger caressing the fabric but never his skin. “I… don’t know. Nightmares, I think.”

And the question he dreads. “About?”

 _Breathe_.

He reaches out and takes Yuuri’s hand — loosely, letting him move away if he wishes. Yuuri twines their fingers together instead, giving his hand a gentle squeeze that sends a wave of warmth through Victor, head to toe, and crawls back up to build up somewhere in his gut.

“About?” Yuuri insists.

“About… whether I can stay.” It’s not too far from the truth. That is, in the end, what his nightmares boil down to.

“You mean at Yu-topia?” Victor nods, and Yuuri huffs a laugh. “You’re always welcome here, you know that. Do you know how inconsolable my mother would be if you left?” he says, smile brighter than ever in the dark.

Victor holds his breath. He’s already given Yuuri his name and his heart, is already sharing his bed, he may as well take one more leap of faith. Surrendering, he brings a hand to Yuuri’s face and runs his finger along his bottom lip. It scares him how much he wants to kiss it, or how much Yuuri’s sharp intake of breath at the contact sets his nerves alight. “What about you?” he asks.

“Me?” Yuuri echoes, eyes going from half-lidded from wide open. “I… of course I want you to stay,” he says, so low Victor might not have heard him, were they not drowning in the silence of everything unsaid — were Victor’s peace of mind not precariously balanced at the tip of Yuuri’s fingers as they trace abstract patterns in Victor’s palm.

They breathe in tandem, neither saying a word, but both rearranging themselves into a new configuration little by little, as if the next words demand more.

Yuuri shifts closer, slowly pushing his leg forward until it finds a home between Victor’s thighs and brushes against all of him, sending goosebumps riding on Victor’s skin. It takes him every piece of his restraint not to move his hips. His free hand cradles the back of Yuuri’s head, raking through his hair like he’s longed to for so long — hair that slips through his fingers like silk, in which he wants to bury his nose and smell the spring in Yuuri.

One of them lets out a shaky sigh, Victor doesn’t know who.

“What if…” he pauses, licking his lips. “What if I’m not who you think I am?”

The hand in his stills. After a moment, it frees itself to rest on Victor’s heart, palm splayed on his chest, on that heartbeat that lives and dies on Yuuri’s every word. Deliberately, Yuuri's fingers run along Victor's chest, his clavicle, his throat, any bit of skin he can reach without opening his yukata, as if Yuuri, too, has been waiting to reach out. As if Victor hasn’t long been his for the taking.

Victor closes his eyes and revels in the touch, forgets his own question until the answer comes.

“I don’t need you to be anything. Just Victor,” Yuuri whispers.

Between the whispered answer to his prayers and the tangle of arms and legs, Victor’s resolve shatters into a thousand shards: he pulls Yuuri by the waist until they are fully slotted against each other — until they breathe nothing but one another, and their mouths are suspended by a thread at the edge of the unknown.

Yuuri cups Victor’s face with an unsteady hand. “You can stay for as long as you want. But… I thought… perhaps you’d be better off somewhere else?”

Victor gives him a faint smile he’s not sure Yuuri can see. “I don’t want to be anywhere you’re not.”

Before he can say anything else he’s being pulled by his braid, Yuuri catching his mouth faster than a thought — soft, pliant, hungry for him, everything Victor has only dared fantasize with in the quiet of the night.

His hands roam around Yuuri with a fever — down his neck, his back, finally,  _finally_ grabbing one of his thighs like he’s been aching to, his hips moving of their own volition. Yuuri, his Yuuri, latches onto Victor’s hair as he would to a lifeline, kissing him as if he were his only source of air, and Victor moans into it.

He’s already half adrift and wholly drunk on Yuuri — Yuuri’s hands that run down his chest, his waist, down to where he wants him the most, his lips that nip at his neck and find weaknesses in him that Victor has never known — and he clings to him almost wildly, barely registering Yuuri when he says something.

“ _Victor,_ ” he insists hurriedly, and Victor hums, refusing to end the kiss, chasing his lips in-between every word he can. “Victor, you… are you… sure? You don’t… have to do this if— ”

Victor stops and stares, perplexed. Is he serious? How can Yuuri even imagine—

“Yuuri,” he says, disbelieving. “I want to. If you don’t it’s fine, don’t worry about it, but—”

“No, no, I do! I…  _really_ do. But…” Yuuri trails off, and Victor’s heart cracks: Yuuri looks at him as though he were something to be revered, when it should be the other way around. What is Victor? A creature, nothing more, something others hunt for riches. But Yuuri… he is so much more, and Victor will worship at his feet every day and night, if allowed to.

“Then,” he murmurs, inching closer again and watching, in case Yuuri pulls away. When he doesn’t, Victor places a kiss at the base of his neck, and smiles when Yuuri shivers. “Let me...” a kiss on his jugular, and Yuuri bites back a moan, “be with you…” he nibbles lightly at his lobe, hears a whimper, “tonight.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Yuuri breathes, pulling Victor on top of him and sitting up, kissing him more ravenous than before, like a dam that has been waiting to burst — like Victor needs him to.

He wraps himself around Yuuri, moving his hips in search of friction, of the relief he desperately craves. And he would gladly spend his eternity like this, relishing in the shape of Yuuri’s want, hard against his own.

 _Don’t make me leave_ , he thinks hazily, his mind lost in Yuuri and ready to never find its way out. _Let me stay._

“I want you,” he whispers, “I wanted you every day.” Yuuri holds him tighter, even as there is no longer any empty space between them to still be overcome. “I want you when I’m alone at night.” Yuuri grasps at his back, nails digging into Victor’s skin, murmurs  _me too_.

Victor unties his own yukata and lets it fall around the two of them before recapturing Yuuri’s lips. “I think about you when I go to bed… I want to see you when I wake up…  _ahh…_ ” he pants breathlessly as he falls into a rhythm, as their hips move together in a dance he’s forfeited all control over.

They both scramble to take off Yuuri’s yukata; Victor needs to see, to touch, to feel every bit of Yuuri against him, in him, needs him in all the ways he’s never needed anything else until tonight. He’s never wanted, never yearned for anything like this, not until Yuuri. Never felt like he’s made of fire instead of ice, but Yuuri kisses him until they’re both out of breath, and he wants nothing else for as long as he’s allowed to exist.

“I see you every day… and I still miss you…” he mumbles, hands tangled in Yuuri’s hair again, he can’t get enough of it. He doesn’t know if he’s making sense anymore, but Yuuri needs to know. “I want you to stay… all the time, forever… stay with me…”

Yuuri gasps into their kiss  _I love you too_ , and Victor abandons himself beyond any rational thought.

He nods at Yuuri’s whispered question, mumbles  _yes, anything,_ and he's being incoherent again, but there can be no coherence at the wake of Yuuri’s touch. He teases at Victor's entrance for an infinitesimally long moment before he enters him. Yuuri opens him up as he drinks Victor's whimpers off his lips, his fingers taking him apart seam by seam, giving him everything he needs but also just not enough _._

He lines up with Yuuri until he’s exactly where he needs him; he hears  _please_ and sinks in — slowly, little by little, burning until he can no longer tell where he ends and Yuuri begins. He throws his head back in a relieved sigh, the stretch new and delicious and welcomeinside of Victor.

Yuuri rocks into him and  _oh gods_ , nothing has ever felt this good, and the fire consuming him turns into a raging inferno as he repeats Yuuri’s name under his breath like a prayer.

He feels Yuuri everywhere, madly trying to map out every inch of Victor’s body with his hands, his tongue, with all of himself, and Victor arches under every single one of his touches, writhes when Yuuri takes one of his nipples in his mouth. Yuuri’s back is slick with sweat, and even the smell of it has the power to topple Victor onto the other side of sanity.

He keeps a steady, slow tempo that drives Victor into madness — it’s too slow, but it’s so much, he’s never been this  _full_. This complete. He stifles a moan on the crook of Yuuri’s neck, and Yuuri half-whispers, half-groans into his ear  _Let me hear you. Let everyone hear you._ His mouth finds Victor’s throat, slowly sucking on the same spot until Victor is a mewling mess in his hands.

When he finally throws his head back and moans loudly, it seems to ignite something more in Yuuri: he thrusts harder into Victor, faster, taking him into hand at the same time until Victor can feel himself come undone. Their movements become erratic and he’s so close, his legs trembling as he rides wave of pleasure after pleasure, drowning in it, drowning in Yuuri, Yuuri, _Yuuri_ —

And he’s falling.

He falls from the greatest heights he could never have imagined, and Yuuri follows him a moment later, climaxing with his name on his lips over and over again.

 _Is it true to you too?_ Victor thinks, his mind floating in a fog of post-bliss, his body still toying with the idea of asking for more.  _Am I the only word you still know, like you are to me?_

Yuuri tiredly lies his head on Victor’s shoulder, but still holds on to him as if his life depends on it. Like there’s only one place where Victor belongs, and that’s in his arms; Victor’s more than inclined to agree.

After they break apart, Yuuri hastily puts on his yukata to go in search of a cloth for Victor. He’s back before Victor can even think about following him (a bad idea, he knows, but when he he said he does not want to be anywhere Yuuri is not, he meant it). Yuuri carefully cleans him, and Victor thinks of how, one day, he woke up to Yuuri cleaning his wounds; the only thing he wants to be granted now is to be able to wake up to Yuuri for the rest of his life. Victor will easily trade eras for a mortal life with him.

With a kiss to Victor’s temple, Yuuri slides under the covers again, but Victor stops him.

“Could you…” he hesitates. Is it too stupid a request? Too selfish? Yuuri’s given him so much, he shouldn’t ask for more.

But Yuuri presses the issue as soon as he makes his mind to give up: “Can I what?”

Victor looks away, he doesn’t know how to phrase it, and Yuuri’s laugh is as clear as a bell in the night. “Victor, I think we’re a bit past being embarrassed around each other,” he says, and Victor snorts.

“Yes, I know, I just… it’s ridiculous.”

Yuuri plants another kiss on him, this time on his forehead, and something about it makes Victor want to shed the tears he’s sworn he never will. Another item for his collection of forevers with Yuuri. “Tell me.”

“Maybe you could… sleep without the yukata,” he mumbles. The dark magnifies the silence that follows, and Victor wants to hide his face in the pillow and forget he’s ever asked anything — until Yuuri stands up and takes off his clothes once more, before going back to what is now their futon.

“Good idea. I want to feel you, too,” he says softly, enveloping Victor in an embrace, Victor’s back against Yuuri’s chest in what feels like home at long last.

The last thing he remembers is a kiss to his neck before he falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> It started as a one-shot but quickly turned into a two-chapter fic, and I am SORRY, Sim. I can only promise you a second chapter coming soon!!
> 
> I couldn't help but get the title from [Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44263/fire-and-ice). I mean. When it fits, it fits.


End file.
